It’s easy for a company to claim that it has the “leading” system, and many do. However, if you dig deeper, you’ll find that most vendors have little justification for such a claim. When it comes to objective data there is only one leader among matter management and e-billing systems – Serengeti.

Most widely used system

Highest-rated system by both Law departments and firms

Industry Involvement and Leadership

First to Add Ground-breaking Features & best practices

When Serengeti released its system in 2001, law departments were using software or databases that required the manual entry of voluminous information that was received on paper and emails from their outside counsel. From its initial release, Serengeti has given law departments totally new ways to work, effectively setting new standards for the efficient management of legal work with outside counsel.

A TRACK RECORD OF INNOVATION

• Matter management and electronic billing in one system
• Direct access of both in-house counsel and outside counsel to a single system through encrypted Internet connections
• Unique single fixed monthly law department fee for unlimited law department users and law firms, not dependent upon invoice amounts, and with no charges to law firms
• Intuitive Web interface requiring less than an hour of user training
• Individual user Dashboard of new developments, with links to relevant information; optional email alerts for Dashboard items
• Customizable reporting online, or by export to any spreadsheet or database for presentations, graphing, and further manipulation

2002

• Acceptance of both LEDES bills (from U.S. law firms) and non-LEDES bills (from foreign law firms and small U.S. firms)
• Currency conversion and tax tracking functions for international law departments: automatic international currency conversions for bills, budgets, exposure estimates and other financial data; customizable frequency of currency updates; individual users select a personal currency preference into which all data is converted; and VAT/GST tracking
• Integrated contract management (tracking documents, deadlines, and key data in searchable fields) included as a part of the law department matter management system

2003

• Enforcement of law department requirements that law firms provide budgets, periodic status reports, and other key data (e.g. exposure estimates) by holding delivery of bills on projects where required information is not submitted
• Advanced online budgeting functions, including periodic or phased budgets, comparison of prior budgets, roll-up of multiple law firm budgets, and automatic tracking of spending vs. budget for specified time periods
• Creation of Tracker Worldwide Directory of Firms, permitting law firms to maintain one set of profile information at no cost for all clients on Serengeti; law department access to profile information about any law firm on Serengeti, searchable by law firm name, offices, jurisdictions, and/or areas of practice

2004

• Tracker Speedpost ® for one-click law firm upload of numerous LEDES bills in a single batch, with automatic posting of each bill to the correct matter and first reviewer
• Conversion to a Microsoft .NET framework that provides one of the industry's fastest and most reliable platforms—infrastructure that runs the largest e-billing and matter management network in the world (connecting tens of thousands of vendors and in-house counsel in 125+ countries).

2005

• Incorporation of FAS-5 methodology for liability exposure estimates
• Viewable audit history of all changes to key data for any matter, by individual user and date of original entry or modification of each field of information
• Intellectual property tracking functionality included for tracking and reporting on key information relating to patents, copyrights, and trademarks, including phase-based budgets for patent prosecution

2006

• Optional quick-entry law department timekeeping to establish the value of work performed by the law department, and to allocate law department expense to business units
• Integration with the Industry's leading Registered Agents to upload Service of Process records directly into the system, then automatically route them to matters, and track response deadlines

2007

• Automated accrual collection—integrated, efficient, and audited process for generating accrual data and sending it to finance; essentially, this module converts what was a difficult, manual process into an automated, electronic process
• Advancements to the Calendar of Events show required due dates for the entire fiscal year for status reports, budgets, and accruals; these dates ensure that workflows are consolidated, so that related tasks are always due on the same day

2008

• New tabbed invoicing page makes every invoice-related action accessible from one place
• Consolidated Billing Matters streamline invoice processing and still maintain detail-level reporting for companies whose firms handle multiple related matters—such as those with international intellectual property portfolios

2009

• AP Reverse Feed gives law departments the option to upload invoice payment information into Serengeti so that firms and company users can log into the system to review invoice payment information
• Serengeti leverages Web Services technology to enable a machine-to-machine transfer of approved invoice and AP data to companies’ AP systems
  
  

THE FUTURE OF LEGAL TECHNOLOGY

Serengeti continues to innovate by incorporating the best ideas from our users, as well as from the annual survey that it conducts of members of the Association of Corporate Counsel regarding the latest techniques for managing work with outside counsel.